


Something So Precious About This

by Vita_S_West



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Complete, F/M, Fake Dating, The Arts Are UnderFunded, gratuitous whining about admin and funding issues, professors au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: When her colleague, Professor Garcia Flynn, approached Professor Lucy Preston, with a proposal to torment their mutual nemesis—Wyatt Logan—she was initially taken aback. As she considered his proposition further, she came to rather like the idea, so they embarked on a scheme to mess with Wyatt. The more time they spent together, well, she started to rather like Flynn too....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is all written, I'm just posting one chapter at a time so I can hurry up on the editing.

Lucy was already late to the class that she was supposed to be teaching, before she found a grad student using the department’s only good photocopy machine to scan the entirety of an interlibrary loan. She was already late before she had to photocopy her assignment sheets on the older photocopier, which was finicky to say the least. Downright unworkable was a more accurate description. Still, Lucy tried to make do, not without shooting the grad student a scalding look. He was one of Garcia Flynn’s students, she was sure. Who else would flagrantly ignore copyright laws and the right to renew a stupid library book?

It was early September and she was trying to photocopy an example of an assignment for her third-year class, so they would know what to expect for later in the semester. She only needed 30 copies, but the machine was really making her work for it. It only gave her one at a time and she still had to run 10 minutes across campus. Why did she have to teach in the architecture building? Why did all the history department rooms have to be prioritized for the grad classes? Lucy swore and smacked the machine after it spat out yet another single sheet.

“Need some help?” a voice behind her drawled.

Whipping around, she saw Flynn, sporting a black turtleneck and an amused look on his face. Smug bastard. She wasn’t much of a fan, but usually made some efforts at civility if ignoring him failed. Under any normal circumstances she would have stubbornly refused him, but the ticking clock pressed the stressful ball of nerves in her stomach.

“Do you know how to make this stupid thing photocopy more than one page at a time?” She hit it again for good measure.

“Now, now, use your words,” Flynn teased as he stepped forward. Her mind flashed to all the emails he’d sent, each one bearing the mark of “sent from my iPhone” with curt and often irritable replies about departmental business. Some of which, despite being addressed to one person, had been reply-all-ed.

Lucy heaved a sigh and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping at him when he was actually helping her.

With a “hm” and a few taps of the buttons, he asked, “How many copies?”

”Thirty.”

“Thirty.” He pressed two more buttons and then the big green start button. The machine roared to life and didn’t stop after spitting out one sheet. “Now do you think you two can kiss and make up?”

Lucy’s mouth popped open. “How’d you do that?”

As he opened his mouth, she could tell some sassy remark was about to emerge. “ _Seriously_.”

He titled his head to the side and then showed her. “It’s an old machine but it still works.”

“Like you?” she heard herself joke.

For a second she thought he was taken aback, but then he said, “I was only invented _last_ year, Lucy.”

“Ha.” Collecting her papers she said, “Thanks for fixing it and showing me how to fix it.”

“No problem,” he called after her, but Lucy was already taking off as fast she could to get to her class.

***

After her lecture, Lucy had an appointment with an undergrad who wanted to ask questions about an honours project. She didn’t have time to supervise another student, but she could answer questions. The only issue was that her office was in the Arts Building and she had forgone every coffee place before arriving at the last possible option on the Arts Building ground floor. It was cheap and fair trade, so naturally the line up during the class break was massive.

She had skipped the last two because she sometimes ran into dirty looks and conversation that suddenly died as she approached. This hadn't happened every time, but it had happened enough. She knew some of the people, who did this, one of them being Emma, but others seemed to have been fed on rumours.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered irritably.

It didn’t feel like she could catch a break. It was only a minor inconvenience, she told herself. _There was nothing actually wrong with this day, I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed._

This line of thought, and Lucy herself for that matter, froze when she saw her ex, Wyatt Logan, with his arm around his wife. To be fair, that was where his arm should have been. She still wanted to break it and yell at him, of course. When she saw Wyatt’s head start to turn, she ducked her head quickly and started to move. Him catching her staring may have been the one thing to make that day irrevocably worse. Other people catching her staring was bad enough. She didn't need anymore rumours or suggestions that she was pursuing him to circulate. She couldn't see Emma, but if she found out about this she was sure to say something about Lucy and homewrecking. Emma was a grown woman and a professor, but still petty as hell. She was also Jessica Logan's best friend. It was a terrible combination. An enemy righteously invested in hating her so that her best friend didn't have to.

A familiar voice called jolted her from her own burrowing rage, “We’ve got to stop meeting this way, Lucy.”

Of course it was Flynn and his stupid teasing. The university had some 30,000 students, fourteen faculties, and 1,000 professors—this wasn’t even counting the admin staff—but of course, she had to run into him _again_. Logically she knew they were cross-listed in the same department, and there were plenty of classrooms in the Arts Building, so this was a realistic coincidence. Still, she resented the fact.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, she said through gritted teeth, “Hi Flynn.”

Of course, the bastard had a cup of black coffee to match his black turtleneck. Which was also stupid.

“You okay?” he asked.

He was smirking slightly. Lucy had to resist the urge to smack the cup right out of his hand.

“Yes,” she ground out, “I just need a coffee and I don’t have time to wait in this line and—"

Flynn handed her his coffee. There was no hesitation in the movement.

She stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

“I haven’t drunk out of it. Or poisoned it,” he assured her. “If that’s what you’re worrying about.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Because I’m trying to give you a cup of coffee, not death?”

“No, I mean, why are you giving it to me? You probably had to wait 20 minutes for that.”

“Oh, at least.” He shrugged. “The workers certainly aren’t working like they’re being paid to make it. Or like they know how lines work. Like the slower you work the longer it will get. That kind of thing. I wonder if I failed one of them...” He glanced back at the staff.

“Are you su—"

“I only came down because I needed a walk. I’m getting one now. It’s not a trick Lucy. If you don’t want it—"

She shook her head quickly. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Shall we?” He motioned towards the stairs.

“You’re coming up too?” she asked, turning with him and falling into step.

His office was in another building, the Sexton Building.

“We have another meeting about the new hire.”

Of course. Flynn was on the hiring committee for the new cross-listed professor, one that would hopefully be part of Lucy’s department, the American Cultural Studies Department, and Flynn’s Econ Department. They were in the midst of hiring someone for economic history, which Lucy knew they needed someone for. Still, she thought they should have gone for someone they could crosslist with anthropology. That was more pressing. Besides with this new person being in Econ, it would be an excuse for Economics get funding from outside their own department, but still assign this person Econ courses. This meant the new hire would be paid for by the American Cultural Studies Department, but taking on Econ’s workload.

She knew that Flynn was the architect of this plan. While his only current admin role was chair of the Berry Economic Fellowship, he was the former department head. Besides Michael Forrester, Econ’s current head wasn’t ambitious or tactical enough for such a plan. Flynn, however, was adept at bullshit institutional politics. Whereas Lucy thought the bigger picture was the students, Flynn thought the bigger picture was more centred on class sizes, budgets, networking and other administrative politics.

“Ah,” Lucy said. Her appreciation of him dissipated as quickly as it had formed. He was almost as bad as Wyatt Logan she had decided.

***

Wyatt and Lucy’s break-up had mostly been amicable. Mostly. After all, they still worked together, albeit in different departments and buildings. Lucy had gone in knowing that Wyatt wasn’t fully over his wife. After all, Jessica was still his wife at the time.

Lucy had been under the impression that the constant delay to finalize their divorce after months of separation had been because of paperwork and issues with lawyers and filings and civil court bureaucracy. She had never been married let alone divorced, so she took Wyatt’s word for it. It had always sounded so complicated and Wyatt was anything but. What reason would he have to lie?

In the end he wasn’t complicated, just a tad cowardly. When they’d first started dating, he had described his divorce status as “pending, basically immediately”. It had been at a bar, late one night, after a few drinks and a long conversation. She never thought of him as funny but she hadn’t known him well. He told an easy lie not to let the moment, or their connection, die. It was an easy lie to get her into bed.

They’d started seeing each other, mainly in the evening, occasionally in the morning light after a few late but enjoyable nights. After a month and a half, the divorce status changed to “delayed”. They were enjoying each other’s company and she liked him and he looked embarrassed any time it came up, so she let it slide. The status changed back to “pending” in the second month. By then they started to go out together a little more publicly and the looks started. By third it was getting harder and harder to make excuses and the many different looks—none of them pleasant— were joined by whispers and a few comments. When she finally pushed him, Wyatt finally admitted, half shouting, “I don’t know! It’s complicated.”

He had asked her if she wanted to keep carrying on. She had thrown him out of her house.

During the days before the new term started up, before all the orientation activities and the new students moved into their dorms, Lucy had gone to campus to grab some books. She needed James Scott’s _The Weapons of the Weak_ and Cheryl Jorgensen-Earp’s _The Transfiguring Sword_ to prepare for her course on social movements of the 1800s and 1900s. The warmth of summer still lingered, but the particular abandoned feeling of the campus felt less like a ghost town and more like a calm before a storm. There were so few people that Lucy made it up to her office, to the library and then to the Fordham Building to use the bathroom. She had no real reason to enter the engineering, other than its bathroom and to see if Rufus was around. It wasn’t that any the previous buildings Lucy had been to didn’t have bathrooms. Fordham was just a nicer and newer building, and thus had nicer and newer bathrooms. The university was willing to shill out for its renovation, when Lucy couldn’t open her office’s window and her department was only able to fill one of its two vacancies.

In the alcove, Lucy heard voices that she knew—those of Rufus and Bambam. She hadn’t seen Bambam in a while, not since breaking up with Wyatt. That was how she had met him.

She was about to call out to them when she heard Bambam say, “Are you going to Wyatt and Jess’s end of summer barbecue?”

It was an instinct of panic and pride that sent Lucy behind a large potted fern. While it was irrational, she didn’t want to approach two people she had spent most of the time with with Wyatt while they talked about Wyatt and his wife. She stayed there, crouching as she heard Rufus respond, “Yeah, Wyatt’s pretty excited about it. I got a pretty long description of all the food and beer that’ll be served.”

“Well, yeah, they’re going all out this year.” Bambam laughed. “They’re pretty happy to be back together again. I’m really glad that that worked out. Doesn’t make sense to throw out eight years of marriage.”

“They’re all moved back then?” Rufus asked.

“Yeah. I mean, not that much moving to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t exactly move out, did he?”

Lucy's breath caught in her throat. For a long moment it felt like she couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t moved out?

“I thought he did.” Rufus sounded nearly as confused as Lucy felt, but much less nauseous.

“Barely. Like I think he took some clothes but he always intended to go back. It was just to give Jess some space.”

“Really?” Rufus sounded skeptical. Of course he did, he had heard most of the events from Lucy and Jiya, with some stuff filled in by Wyatt.

“Oh, yeah, I mean, I know they were fighting and it wasn’t great, but he was always going to go back,” Bambam insisted.

Lucy didn’t hear the rest. Her heat pounded in her ears, as fresh wave of humiliation nearly crippled her. She snuck out the way she came and took another exit, through a side door. She barely looked where she was going.

 _He hadn’t even moved out. He always intended to go back._ He’d never said any of this to her. He hadn’t hinted at it. He had been stringing her along. Sure, she hadn’t asked for details about his divorce, but he had always insinuated that he was going to get one. He told her he had a sublet. He told her that he had moved out. She had known he wasn’t fully over Jess, but that made sense. They had been married for years and he needed time to adjust to life without her. God, Lucy had been a fool.

***

Staring out her office window, onto the lane below, Lucy marinated in her own dark thoughts and frustrations. Realistically, she knew seeing Wyatt put her in a very bad mood. It was easier, however, to put the blame on someone like Flynn. She had never been in love with Flynn. It didn’t help that there was another email from him in her inbox about a departmental meeting, signed off with that stupid “sent from my iPhone” tag. He was ruining her department. Enrolment may be down, but they weren’t dying. They were still viable. He was acting like they should be grateful that Econ was deigning to be associated with them.

She had been staring out her window for so long, so spaced out that it took her a full minute to realize that she was staring at Flynn’s retreating figure below.

Part of her knew she was actually angry at Wyatt, but she didn’t care. She planned to march up to him and confront him.

She bolted out of her office chair, knocking over some precariously placed syllabi, grabbing her coat as she went. Her feet barely touched the floor as she ran down the hallway and down the stairs. In hindsight, it was a miracle she didn’t break her neck. Flynn was easy to spot. He was tall and he basically swaggered.

She shouted his name, letting some of her acidity leak through.

He paused, looking up from his iPhone. (Of course, he was on that stupid phone.) He was probably sending another email about how low the ACS Department’s enrolment was. He was probably hitting “send-all” on an individually-addressed email. He turned to look at her and—and he smiled a cheerful smile. “Lucy,” he greeted her, sliding the phone into his pocket.

Suddenly, it dawned on her that she couldn’t yell at one of her colleagues in the middle of the foot path, especially one that led to the quad. There were dozens of students milling about, or sitting on benches that lined the laneway. The weather was warm enough and it was early enough in the year, that there was a surplus of people out enjoying themselves and the weather.

“I, uh, I wanted to ask you about the hiring committee,” she heard herself say.

“Oh, of course. Can you walk and talk?”

She nodded. They started off.

“Is there anything in particular—"

“Diversity!” she blurted. “This is an economics hire and the entire committee, I couldn’t help but notice, are all men, and a lot of the hires for econ _tend_ to be—"

“Mm, yes, we have women on the list. We already have a shortlist—"

“So soon?”

“We have some strong candidates.”

“And they are—"

“There’s a woman on there if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Just one?”

“We aren’t the only Econ department desperately trying to get a woman in. The candidate we're looking at—"

“What’s her name?”

“Erica Hsu. She has her doctorate from Yale and she just published her first book. She’s impressive enough that she’ll have her pick of the litter.”

“And then we end up with a guy,” Lucy concluded.

“We have other candidates besides her. Two of them are particularly strong.”

“But they’re men.”

“The short list is about five names and three are men.”

“You can see why that’s a concern for us.”

“And by us, you’re talking about the entire ACS department?” Flynn remarked with a chuckle.

Lucy bristled. “If you don’t have _any_ women on your committee, you can see why I would be concerned about certain biases. Conscious or not.”

“I agree with you. But there’s not a lot I can do if we have a limited number of qualified women applicants and one of them will probably get scooped by somewhere with more funding." He sighed. "We do know the breakdown of our own department, Lucy.” It had been completely male since the retirement of Charlotte Williams two years prior. “We are trying to change it, but most of our candidates, well… we want them more than they want us. Especially when this is only a three-year position and _not_ tenure track. It’s a big move to come here for little guarantee of longevity.”

Lucy nodded.

“Is that all?”

“Yeah I think so.” She wanted to ask about cross-listing. She wanted to interrogate him.

The only issue was Wyatt frigging Logan walking towards her. She stopped in her tracks. Seeing him was the last thing she wanted to do right then. She had barely avoided him earlier and here he was now?

Flynn stopped too and followed her gaze. He rolled her eyes and for a second she thought, he was going to say something scathing. Instead, he put his arm around her shoulders, like some kind of bodyguard avoiding the paparazzi, and turned her, leading her in the opposite direction.

“I know you were hoping for an anthropologist for this next hire,” he told her, “but for the department to remain interdisciplinary it needs _other_ social sciences besides anthropologists and historians. We could probably use a linguist too. ”

She was so taken aback by the swiftness of it all that she barely realized what he was saying. He made no reference to Wyatt and it was several seconds before his arm left her shoulders. They both knew that it had happened—that he saw her reaction and covered for her—but they both pretended that it didn’t. Lucy preferred it that way.

***

The next time she saw Garcia Flynn, was two days later when he was standing in the doorway of her office, wearing a dark three piece suit with a red tie. She didn’t know why, but the first thing she thought was, _He looks good_. She was instantly annoyed by it.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

Lucy was sitting at a crowded desk. Her primary sources, photos and scans from an archive in Philadelphia, were stuffed into binders and stacked on one side, while course readings and assignment sheets were scattered across the rest of the desk.

“Uh, yes.”

“You okay?”

“Just going over an assignment that I’m handing out next week.”

“You don’t have a TA to help with that?”

“Nope. No TAs in classes with less than thirty-five students. We lost those in the last round of budget cuts.”

Flynn grimaced. “Right. So did I.” All of Arts did.

He stood uneasily next to the orange chair meant for students and other visitors. He glanced around the office briefly, at her degrees on the wall, the wall to wall bookshelves, heavily laden.

She sighed. “Is there something—"

“So, I was thinking,” he began and then cleared his throat.

“Yes?”

“I was thinking you seem to be having some trouble with Wyatt Logan.” He said the name with some distaste.

Lucy froze for a moment, then carefully placed her pen on the desk.

“Why would you say that?” she asked coldly.

“Because dear old Wyatt came to see me. Seemed to think we were dating. And that it was bad idea. For you, that is. There was a suggestion that _I_ was bad for you. Like I would give you cavities or something. You know, the regular unenlightened and tired clichés that cavemen would feel comfortable. In fact, come to think of it…” He gave a mean little chuckle.

Breath stuck in Lucy’s throat and a wave of anger hit her like a tsunami. “Get out of my office.” She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to look at Flynn.

He took a step back, hand raised. “I meant no offence I merely thought we could have some fun with him.”

She couldn’t deal with this. It was too much. “No, wait stay I have some stuff to say to you about our department!”

“Oh?” He looked intrigued. “Wh—"

“You’re ruining my department!” This, _this_ felt better. Familiar, even. She had been complaining about Flynn for months, years even, and now she got to actually tell him off. He had invited it after all. It was her deniability. Her license to chew him out.

“ _Your_ department? I work there too!” he said.

“Yeah, but you’re only doing this for Econ.”

“Doing what?” His eyebrows knit together.

“We wanted this new hire to be for an anthropology prof and you and Econ swooped in to take the money for it. We’re going to end up with someone teaching one course in this department and then three in Econ. With _our_ money!”

“I’m doing this for both of my departments. We had to do a cross-listed hire with Commerce last year.”

“Oh, so you figured you’d screw us over the way they screwed you over!”

“No, I figured enrolment was down in ACS, like in most Arts departments, and that enrolment was up in Econ and that if Devon Myers in the Econ department wanted to be able to go on sabbatical to finish his book on time then we would need to spread the teaching load out. Our classes are more popular than yours. You haven’t been able to convince the administration to replace Denise when she left, meaning you were hemorrhaging students and professors. But _we_ could get money for a hire.”

“But we got the funding—“

“You didn’t. ACS is lucky it’s getting two new courses out of this. You have to convince the admin you’re still viable. With this hire, you’ll do that by riding off of Econ’s success.”

“Or we could have increased enrolment with fresh blood!”

Flynn scoffed. “You would never be able to get the funding with that argument!”

“I think we would have!”

He clearly disagreed, but said nothing. They stayed like that for several minutes. Her sitting, teeth gritted, and him standing, staring at her. She bit her lip and weighed what he said. This was not how she thought her day was going to go.

He sighed suddenly. “Look, I’m going to—"

“Did Wyatt really confront you about me?” she interrupted.

He blinked and nodded. Stepping closer to the desk, hesitantly he said, “I didn’t tell him we weren’t dating. I just let him fume. We could…” he shrugged. “We could have some fun. Mess with him.”

“And by fun you mean—"

“Hold hands around him and, I don’t know, call each other 'honey' and go to that faculty-wide events and maybe the holiday party at the end of the semester. Do you want to mess with him?”

Her initial reaction was no. That was petty. She didn’t live her life according to Wyatt Logan. But then she thought of hiding behind the potted fern. She remembered the humiliation of finding out he never moved out. That he had probably started dating her with no intention of going through with his divorce. She remembered all the looks and comments she got from Emma and other people. It could be good to look like she wasn't obsessed with Wyatt Logan. 

She nodded slowly. They were going to mess with Wyatt Logan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which rules need to be made....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading all! here's chapter 2 :) Chapter 3 needs a bit more editing, so hopefully by Monday I'll have that up for you all

They were sitting in a bright and airy Turkish restaurant. Flynn has suggested grabbing a bite, which was when she realized that she was starving. It was a nice place, and even though they arrived at 3, outside typical lunch and dinner times, the waiter seated them at a small table by the window. They could watch people watch as they waited. Inside the restaurant, they were surrounded by white walls and woven rugs, Turkish pendant lamps, miniatures and evil eyes. The decor bordered on racket, but remained within the spectrum of charming. They sat, hands folded, staring at each other. With their table  against the window, she sat with her back to the wall, while he sat at her elbow. Their elbows could have touched if they hadn’t been leaning away from each other.

Behind them, there was an open galley-style kitchen, which added to the impression that they were visiting someone’s home. The chef, a tall bearded man, listened to one of Ahmet Adnan Saygun’s operas on some speakers.

“Let’s lay down some ground rules,” Lucy said.

“Would you also like to take minutes?” he asked dryly.

“If you can’t be serious about this—"

“I apologize. What do you think we need? No kissing?”

“We can kiss, but it has to be minor stuff.”

“What do you consider minor?”

“Don’t dip me and shove your tongue down my throat.”

Flynn looked like he was about to laugh but cleared his throat instead. “Right. Hollywood kissing is strictly off the table.”

“We can’t be spontaneous about this. Wyatt is too perceptive. He’ll catch on.”

“Got it. We’ll beware the bloodhound eye of Wyatt.”

“Can you take this seriously?”

“I will, but Lucy, this is supposed to be fun!”

She stared at him. Flattening her hands onto the table, she nodded.

“We’re playing a game,” she said.

"A game. Exactly!" He leaned forward. “It’s to have fun, but you’re right. We need rules to make sure we...”

"Play fair?" she offered.

He nodded.

The waiter arrived with their mezzes, giving them a slight break from the tension. He refilled their water glasses and left. Lucy thanked him in English and Flynn in Croatian. Glancing at the food, carrot salad and dolmas, she raised her eyebrows at him questioningly.

With a chuckle he explained, “An old friend’s wife runs this place. That’s a nephew.”

“Old friend from school?”

“From the army.”

“Oh. I had no idea you used to…”

“It was a long time ago. Another life.”

“Right.” She waited to see if he would say more, but he didn’t. He began eating his dolma, so she pulled her salad closer. “So, kissing.”

“The good stuff,” he said with a wink.

“Nowhere lower than the neck and no tongue.”

“I agree. Hand holding is—“

“Fine, but ass grabbing—”

He let out a laugh. “I’ll stick to the shoulders? If I’m going to put my arm around you,” he clarified.

“No, at least do my waist.” She gave him and smile and he returned it. There was a twinkle in his eye. It was nothing short of devious.

There was one thing she couldn't stand. “No nicknames.” She said it with much more force than she initially intended. No _sweethearts_.

Blinking, he looked at her with a new level of understanding, one that was dangerously close to pity. She couldn’t take that. She started eating with the ferociousness of a starving alley cat and none of its grace. He followed her lead but with much more reserve and table manners.

For a moment Lucy was completely distracted by the food. Flynn had made a few distracted recommendations when she read the menu, which had simply stated the dish as carrot, yogurt, and garlic, but it was incredible. While she would compare its texture to coleslaw, that seemed like an insult to something that balanced sweetness and garlic so well.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Yeah, this place is great.”

“No kidding.” She dug in further. She hadn’t skipped lunch, but it felt like she had. When she looked at him he was staring at her silently. She felt a blush creep into her cheeks and she checked to make sure there was no food on her face.

Clearing his throat, he assured her, “No nicknames. Longevity?”

“I’m thinking the annual holiday party. Long lingering kiss under the mistletoe and then after new year we act like nothing happened.”

“No messy break up?”

“God, no.”

He was smiling at her and Lucy wasn’t going to admit that she liked it. She took a long sip of her water to mask her own grin.

“How many functions?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“Do we just do joint department events or our own departments?”

“Does Econ have a poker game you want to take me to?”

“No, but I’m busy and I’d rather we stick to mainly academics events and limit them to say, we can each pick two a month.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Fine,” she agreed. “What are you so busy with?”

“What aren’t you busy with?” he scoffed.

“Well, those department meetings about cross-listing and class sizes for starters,” she muttered.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Flynn said. “You can’t call me a monster again.”

“I didn’t—“

“I heard you say to Jiya 'what kind of monster hits reply all to an email.'”

It took her a moment to recall the incident, but she realized she had, while grabbing coffee with Jiya. “How'd you even hear about that?"

"A student."

"Seriously?"

"They thought it was rather funny."

"Shit," Lucy said. "Sorry. But I do want an answer.”

“To what?”

“What kind of a monster hits reply-all to departmental emails.”

“I haven’t done that recently, you know!”

“It was last week. It said sent from my iPhone!”

“The buttons are small! What was I supposed to do? Whip out my laptop at a football game?”

“Drinking?” Lucy said dryly.

“What—how many children’s football games have you been to? I hardly drink at the under-10s league. I mean, they’re bad, but they’re not _that_ bad.” He turned back to his dolmas, shaking his head.

“Children’s foot—oh.” Lucy realized he was referring to soccer and—

“My daughter. Iris.”

“Of course. I’m sorry I didn’t realize—"

“It’s fine. I don’t really bring her up a lot.”

“Is her mother—"

“We’re divorced. Don’t worry. I can show you the paperwork.”

Lucy gave him a warning look. “I was going to ask if she was around. I know what complicated mothers are like.”

This gave him pause and Lucy suddenly felt like she’d said too much. Even when asking about him, she was talking about herself.

But, like the nicknames, he made no comment. “Lorena is around. We share custody. It’s amicable… It just didn’t work out.”

“Of course,” Lucy said again.

“That’s another rule,” he said. He leaned forward, causing the table to dip slightly. “If you ever meet Iris, you can’t let her know about this. This is mainly for work but I don’t want to confuse her or—”

“Flynn, I completely understand. I would never say anything. I don’t even have to meet her.”

“You can meet her,” he said. “If you want. You don’t have to _not_ meet her.” He cleared his throat. “I just mean that I don’t bring her up a lot, but I don’t keep her hidden. She’s in my life, so you’ll probably bump into her at some point. I’ll give you the heads up ahead of time. It’s… not that big of deal. I just don’t want to mess with her."

Lucy nodded.

He shrugged. “This is for messing with Wyatt and the gossips and the undergrads,” he said.

Lucy tilted her head to the side. “I thought the grad students were more of the gossips.”

“Oh, they are. That’s who I meant when I said the gossips. The grad students and the admin assistants. But mostly the nosy grad students.”

She snorted. After a moment, he asked, “Does this all sound good to you?”

“Yeah. I think this could work.”

“Could?”

She amended, “I think this will work.”

He held out his hand and, laughing, Lucy shook it. It was a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you could probably guess, this chapter was dedicated to a really good carrot salad that I had one time at a turkish restaurant.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn and Lucy have their first "date", not without incident...

Their first official “date” was to see a guest speaker at the presidential speaker series, then to the wine and cheese after. Flynn came to her office to collect her and politely waited while she finished writing her sentence. He held doors open for her, and let her pick the seats. During the lecture, if a thought or point struck him, he wrote it down on his phone. Lucy stuck to pen and paper. Occasionally, he would lean over to her, his breath tickling her ear, and make a joke.

When they went to the wine and cheese, Flynn just commented on the speaker and asked her for her thoughts. She found that he could make her laugh easily. At a pause, when she noticed that her cheeks hurt from smiling, she told him, “You look nice.” And he did. “I like the pinstripes.”

He chuckled. “Thank you. You do as well. I like the blue.”

Lucy pulled at the sleeve of her cardigan. “Thanks, I stole it from my sister. Do you have any siblings?”

“An older brother. He’s an engineer and lives in France. On the whole, much more successful.”

“What? You wouldn’t call yourself successful?”

“And you would?” He raised his eyebrows.

"Fishing for compliments?"

He shrugged. Then after a moment of silence, Flynn said, his tone and posture changing, “So, Lucy,” . He was taller, leaning over her slightly and there was a glint in his eyes.

She suddenly felt nervous and wasn’t sure why. Well, she knew why, it was that look in his eyes. “Yes?”

“Who in this room do you think you could take in a fight?”

Lucy gaped at him, and his face split into an ear-to-ear grin. He was messing with her.

She shook her head. “Like in a dual?”

“If you prefer.”

“Pistols or sabres?”

“The lady’s choice.”

She snorted. She glanced around the room. It was still September, early enough in the semester, so there was no shortage of students in attendance. They hadn’t been hit with the full force of their schedules yet. The professors were also out, mingling, talking about summer research trips and ad-drop dates. “I guess Anthony would be low-hanging fruit,” Lucy mused.

“Mm-hm.”

Lucy’s eyes landed on Emma. Aside from making her social life more difficult and drying up many of Lucy's casual friendships and work acquaintances with bad-mouthing and gossip, she had called Lucy’s latest paper derivative and too broad for its conclusions to hold water or for anyone to build off it— except maybe under the short end of the couch that was. She had also, a few years previously, suggested that Lucy only got her job because of her mother. It was a pain any time Lucy had to see the woman at any meeting, lecture series, seminar, or workshop.

It was a pain any time she had to talk to the social sciences coordinator, a woman who had always been friendly with Lucy before she dated Wyatt Logan, and had since become standoffish.

“The real question is who would I _want_ to fight.”

Flynn’s eyes followed hers. “Do tell.”

“I just think we’d have a lot to… talk about. Maybe in a parking lot.”

Flynn snorted. “Now the question is, do you think you could win? I’m pretty sure Emma does krav maga.”

Lucy shrugged. “Maybe if I was angry enough… or had the element of surprise.”

“So, you’re in a parking lot, with a bat—”

“No, not a bat. That’s too aggressive. Too violent…”

“So is this conversation.”

“You chose it!”

“Is there something you want to talk about _besides_ the hiring committee?” he asked with a groan.

She was about to lecture him on that very subject when someone behind her cleared their throat. She whipped around. It was Wyatt.

“Wh—”

“Lucy, can we talk?” Wyatt asked. “In _private_.”

Flynn let out a scoff, but Lucy was so annoyed with him that she nodded to Wyatt. She muttered an excuse to Flynn, who looked a little hurt. She was too irritated to care.

She and Wyatt moved to the side, by a fire exit. Once, again she started to talk, but he interrupted.

“Lucy, what are you doing?” He sounded exasperated. Like he was lecturing her. Like she was one of his students.

Lucy stared at him. “How do you mean?”

“Messing around with Flynn. Lucy, he’s a bad guy. He’s going to chew you up and spit you out.”

Lucy knew that Wyatt had confronted Flynn, which was laughable. When he was confronting to her, however, the humour evaporated. Especially considering, the many vodka-soaked nights she had wished someone would have said the exact same thing to her about Wyatt. She never would have listened to them, she knew, but still. She began to shake her head at him in disbelief, when she caught sight of Jessica, talking to Emma.

Her throat closed up, as a wave of humiliation washed over her. This looked _bad_.

“Lucy, are you listening to me?” Wyatt prompted.

Had he still been talking? She must have gone temporarily deaf. She still wished she was.

“I have to go,” she said, her voice tight. She was going to start screaming or crying she really wasn't sure which.

“Lucy,” he called after her.

She pushed through the crowd, maybe roughly, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t sure where she was going exactly. She just had to get away from Wyatt. _Married_ Wyatt.

When she caught sight of Flynn, she froze. He was talking to Anthony and his wife and they were laughing about something.

She backed away. She didn't want to interrupt. She was sure she looked out of sorts and didn't want to make small talk with Flynn or his friends. Even if said friend was also a friend of Rufus. Academia was too damn small.

She headed outside, assuming that there would be sufficiently fewer people there. The cool autumn evening had the desired calming effect. She sighed and considered whether she wanted to back inside. She and Flynn did have a deal, but it wasn't like she couldn't break it off. Besides why was he doing this? Why did he want to mess with Wyatt? Was he actually that petty or was something else going on?

They had talked rules and methods, but not why. Her "why" had been obvious after all. Despite her frustration, in the autumn air it occurred to that she should probably at least talk to Flynn before leaving.

As she headed back inside, she saw that he had sent her a text. _Everything ok?_

She could answer when she saw him. It did take some time to find him, as when she approached Anthony and Natasha, Anthony told her, "He went looking for you."

Of course he did. Lucy was hesitant to wander around, lest she run into Wyatt, or worse, Emma. At least she could text him. _Where are you?_

The response: _Here_

And he was standing at her elbow. Lucy was sure that she jumped nearly a foot in the air.

"Wh-co-Don't do that!" she snapped.

"What? I texted," Flynn said, waving his phone for emphasis.

"I'm attaching bells to you. Jeez!"

"You're the one who vanished for ten minutes. I should get you bells."

"For air!"

Anthony and Natasha exchanged amused looked. "We're going to head out," Natasha said. "It's getting late."

Flynn and Lucy glanced at each other, wondering the same. "Yeah, we should too," Lucy said.

***

Lucy had been planning on parting ways after saying goodbye to Anthony and Natasha and leaving the building, but Flynn offered to drive her home.

“Oh, you don’t have to!”

“It’s fine. Iris is with Lorena tonight. There’s no one waiting up for me.”

She nodded. It would be convenient.

They drove most of the way in silence, but when they paused at a traffic light she couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“Embarrassed me? How did you do that?”

She shrugged. “With Wyatt."

"I really don't care about what he thinks," he said coolly.

Lucy blinked. Maybe there was more between him and Wyatt than she actually knew. "What about with Anthony and Natasha when I disappeared for a bit?”

“They barely noticed.”

“I wish I could say the same for Emma and Jessica,” Lucy groaned.

Flynn said nothing for a moment. Glancing between her and the road, he said, “If this is too much..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean, you seem really stressed about this. I only meant all this to be a bit of fun. I didn’t mean for you to—”

“You didn’t upset me. Wyatt did.”

“Still, you are upset."

Turning to face him, she corrected, "Was."

He sighed. Keeping his eyes on the road, he shifted his body slightly, as if to face her. "I just mean to say... I don’t want to make you do anything you don't want to. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to.”

"I'm fine, really. But," she paused for a moment, "thanks for the out."

He nodded.

She watched him as he drove. The light from the dashboard illuminated his hands and the passing streetlights casting errant light across his face as they drove. He wasn't unattractive, his dark eyes and dark hair. In fact, even though Lucy had spent such a large portion of their acquaintance being annoyed with him, she had to admit, he was good looking. He was funny—mostly. He had a good job. In their silence she came back to "why". Wasn't there someone he could date for real? Why did he want to do this at all?

"What did Wyatt do to you?"

"What?"

"Why do you want to do all this? It seems like a lot of work to just to mess with him."

"Other than his confrontation, his arrogance and a general egotistical disposition? Besides that do I need another reason to want to take him down a peg?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Are you at all capable of giving a straight answer? This a lot of work and you have to spend all this time with me. I mean you're driving me home!"

"Yes, spending time with an intelligent, charming woman. How I'll survive it's a mystery, but I'm sure I can persevere." Then after a moment he said, seriously, "You're not a chore and I do actually like spending time with you. Even if there are times where it seems like you care more about academic politics than breathing, it works out because you know what you're talking about. I've had to deal with Wyatt at senate before and he annoyed the hell out of me, so him showing up in my office to lecture me was insulting and irritating to say the least. Now I get to hit two birds with one stone. I get to annoy Wyatt and have good company to a lot of tedious and irritating events that I would rather skip."

Lucy suddenly realized that he had made this proposal after interrogating him about the hiring committee. It wasn't just Wyatt approaching him. "That's it? You wanted someone to be your bureaucratic wingwoman?"

He glanced at her. “Do you want to stop?”

“I've already answered that."

"So you haven't changed your mind?"

"In the last ten minutes? No, not really. Do _you_ want to?"

"Of course not."

"Good."

They fell into silence. Lucy watched street lights and dim storefronts drift past. Yes, pretending to date Flynn had gotten Wyatt’s attention and attempted interference, but… it hadn’t been an unpleasant evening. Yes, Flynn annoyed her sometimes and they disagreed about the hiring committee. Besides, as long as they played it right, this could be good for her career too...

"Oh, that's mine on the left,” she pointed.

He pulled up to her house and looked through her window at it. “Is it all yours?”

She laughed. “Only the second floor. I’m renting. Flynn, I,” she paused. She wanted to get this part right. “I did have a good time tonight. And before that part that wasn’t, it was fun.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’m free Tuesday. After class.”

“It’s a date. Well…”

“It’s a fake date.” They shared a smile. They would continue to share their secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! hoping to have chap 4 up by friday :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jiya wants to know what's going on...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone for commenting and leaving kudos! i love that all your comments were just calling Flynn out. it really made me laugh

It was fun. It was like their own private joke. He would meet her after her Tuesday-Thursday classes and they would get coffee. He held the door open for her and brought gossip. Lucy came to look forward to it.

She used to feel people’s eyes on her, on both of them as they went. It felt like a performance, like lecture halls and the faculty club had become a stage. The more time went, the more coffees they got, the more they sat next to each other in meetings, at lectures, in coffeeshops, in their offices, the more he walked her to the car or class, the more everyone else fell away. The more time passed, it felt like it was just the two of them.

In her office, Lucy finished saving her work on the computer, ready to meet Flynn for the grad students’ coffee hour. Sensing someone in her doorway, she said, “Oh there you are!”

“Were you expecting me?” It was Jiya.

“Shoot, I thought you’d be Flynn.”

“Yeah, we have a lot in common.” Jiya meandered into her office, looking at the mess.

“You’re both tall, dark and… well you know.” It felt weird to call Flynn handsome out loud, even if she'd thought it before. “What’s up?”

“Well, I was stopping to see if you want to go grab some lunch next week. I sent you an email, but...”

“Oh, shoot, yeah, I’m sorry I saw that. Yeah, that sounds great. I’m free on Tuesday. No wait, Flynn and I were going to work in the rare books room. Well, _I_ was going to work there and he's just tagging along. Wednesday though! Wednesday will work.” Lucy turned back to her computer to turn it off. When she turned back, Jiya was looking at her, biting her lip. “Is there something that's bothering you?”

“I just wanted to ask you about, well, about Flynn.” Jiya came in closer, and dropped into the orange chair.

Lucy paused. “Uh, yeah, what about Flynn?”

“Like… what’s going on there?”

“Like, what do you mean?” Lucy asked, smiling awkwardly.

“Lucy, are you mad at us?”

“What?”

“Me and Rufus. You didn't tell us _anything_ about you two dating. I heard about it from Rufus, because Wyatt was complaining to him about it.”

“Wyatt was complaining to Rufus?”

“Yeah, saying that Flynn's really arrogant and always pulling some play with the admin or the provost. To be honest I don't really get all the upper level admin and bureaucratic politics, but it's pretty clear that Flynn has ambitions to be dean. Or that's what Wyatt said. And that he was using you for your mother's legacy."

"He said _what_?"

"They were drinking. I think he was just shooting shit."

Lucy's lips curled. "He said that to you guys?"

"I thought you said didn't care what Wyatt said."

"I know, but not if he's going to—"

"You didn’t answer the question.” Jiya crossed her arms.

Lucy sighed. Wyatt was a problem for another day. “No, I’m not angry with you. Or with Rufus. I’m just…” She wasn’t supposed to tell Jiya. That was part of the deal with Flynn. It was their little secret. But Jiya is her friend, and Lucy realized, she had never deliberately lied to her before. It felt… terrible. Instead she said, “We’re just having some fun. That’s all.”

“Fun?” Jiya said skeptically. “You called him a monster and complained about him constantly. Now you’re having fun together?”

“I know. I just need something to—I just need some fun.” She almost said she needed a distraction, but the word soured in her mouth before she could say it. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel fair to Flynn.

There was a soft tapping behind them. Lucy jumped and looked up.

Flynn appeared in the doorway, wearing a dark blue suit. “Oh, hello Jiya. Will you be joining us?”

Jiya stood, somewhat reluctantly. “For what?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s a grad students’ get-together. They invited the professors. We’re just going to mingle, then there’s this thing at the faculty club. Did you know they’re starting to look for a new dean of arts?”

“No, I didn’t, and thanks for the invite, but Rufus and I are getting dinner.”

“Another time,” Flynn said with a smile. He turned to Lucy. “You ready to go?”

“Let’s!” Turning back to Jiya she said quickly, “I’ll email you about lunch. I’m sorry I didn’t before.”

Jiya nodded. “Sounds good.” She gave them both one last, lingering and suspicious look. She could tell something was up, that Lucy wasn’t being entirely truthful. Lucy would have to deal with those consequences later.

She and Flynn walked, arm and arm to the students’ lounge. He was good with the students, friendly, but direct. While they arrived together, Lucy was quickly diverted by one of her own grad students and the two ended up talking about what the best courses for her to take during the next semester. She could still see Flynn's animated features. She found herself smiling, just watching him smile.

After they were chopped full of coffee and pastries, they nipped over to the Faculty Club. It was a beautiful Victorian-style building, excellently preserved. It looked like a house from the exterior, and indeed, it used to be the university president’s lodging. The steeply pitched roof was an irregular shape, with patterned shingles, topping the front-facing gables. People smoked on the porch. Inside there was wine-coloured bonaparte wallpaper and dark hardwood floors. They passed a functioning grandfather clock on the landing. As they entered what Lucy imagined used to be a parlour, it felt like they had travelled back in time. The high-ceilinged room was lined with tall white baseboards. The moldings were in an ornate floral design, above the patterning, jewel-like wallpaper of warm golden and metallic hues.

“Wow,” Lucy gasped.

“They only let people in here when they want to impress them,” Flynn mused. “I believe the wallpaper is Persian inspired. Meant to symbolize the luxurious east or something Orientalist like that.”

“You know about architecture?”

“I have approximate knowledge of many things,” Flynn quipped.

She snorted.

“Though I must confess most of that knowledge is from children’s cartoons that Iris likes.”

“You couldn’t have me thinking you were too witty.”

“No, nor too clever. You’d have me proofreading things I have no business proofreading. On my iPhone of course.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Let’s get a drink.”

“Am I not interesting enough yet? I can tell you about the wall frieze—that’s like a wallpaper but smaller and boring.” He put arm around her and she sunk in. She didn’t realize that she had been waiting for him to do that until she let out a laugh.

“Oh you _like_ frieze. Good, just give me a drink and a minute to make up some facts.”

***

Somewhere in the back of Lucy’s head, she knew that Wyatt was nowhere in sight, that none of the surrounding people really knew Wyatt. She knew there was no reason for the show, for Flynn’s arm around her, her leaning her head on his shoulder. She ignored those needling thoughts. She was enjoying herself too much. Besides, it would be awkward to pull away, she told herself at first. But after that first though, she just didn’t think of it at all.

They had had one drink and were preparing to make their excuses, as it wasn’t a particularly lively event and Flynn didn’t seem to have the patience to try and weasel information out of VPs or coordinators. Lucy had managed to get a bit of gossip, which had necessitated another drink and a chat with one woman, who had some news about possible funders, but not good news for the Faculty of Art’s budget. This of course didn’t bode well for the ACS or History Departments—underperforming as they were, the woman noted. Flynn rolled his eyes and muttered to Lucy, if only the could shake the History Department by its ankles to see if they could get any loose change to fall out. Lucy got a very good idea of the sort of people Flynn dealt with as the one in charge of coordinating the research fellowships and internships.

Anthony arrived late, but he was happy to see Flynn, and basically nobody else. Lucy left them alone to go to the bathroom, assuming they wanted to catch up. She also felt strangely embarrassed, considering that last time she saw Anthony, she had been a mess. She took her time walking to the washroom, checking her makeup, chatting with an older lady about the weather, and then meandering back. It looked like Anthony and Flynn were conspiring when she returned. They stood in the corner, heads bent towards each other, hands waving. She took a detour for more wine, which she sipped as she wandered through the room, catching snatches of conversation.

"Can you even believe that?

"I heard they got a massive donation from Ives and—"

"It's such a shitty town I don't know why she would move there—"

"—not even _tenured_!"

"—wouldn't even be able to get Wright let alone Webb not in this—"

She felt like she was in a kaleidoscope of minutiae. The conversations were probably so important to all the people having them, but they just floated around her. Glancing back at Flynn and Anthony, she could see that Flynn was watching her. She downed the wine and went up to them.

"Ready to go?" Flynn asked.

"If you are."

"Yeah, we're all done."

Lucy didn't ask what they were all done with. "It was good to see you," she said to Anthony.

"You too." He smiled at her.

Flynn muttered something else to Anthony and Lucy began to turn back to the party. Maybe he wasn't really done.

"Yeah, send me a reminder email if I don't get that to you," Anthony told him.

"Will do," Flynn said. "Thanks again."

"Not at all." Then, quieter, Anthony said, “It’s nice to see you out. And doing things _._ ”

Turning to Lucy, Flynn said, "Time to go." He slipped his arm around her and off they went.

***

It was raining. Thick streams of cold autumn downpour, swirling into deep black puddles. Flynn swore when he saw it.

“Do you have an umbrella?” he asked her.

She shook her head no.

“We’ll just have to make a run for it.”

She grimaced. “No chance of waiting it out?”

“I don’t mind staying another few hours with you,” Flynn said, “but I assume you need to sleep.”

She grimaced. “Let’s get this over with!”

They tried to avoid the deeper puddles, but water splashed up their ankles and calves. The rain beat down heavy on their heads, their coats, dripping unpleasantly down their necks. Lucy stared at the sidewalks, an inky blackness, to keep the rain out of her eyes. Her hair was plastered to her face. She ran alongside him, until suddenly he wasn’t right next to her. She had a moment of confusion before his hand was on her wrist, pulling her back towards the car. She had run right past it. There was an awkward moment of fiddling with the car doors before they could get in. Panting and shivering, Flynn wiped his hair from his face.

“Nothing like a cold shower, huh?” he mused.

She snorted. The tail-end of her wine still buzzed through her. Not enough to warm her from the rain, but enough to blurt on some instinct. “Really helps cool things down.”

“Oh?” he said, his hands pausing before the key entered the ignition.

Heat spread up the back of her neck and and straight to her face. “I forgot how frigid fall rain was.” She cleared her throat, and stared hard out the rain-splattered windshield. She could barely see the car in the parking spot ahead of them.

“Of course,” he said his voice low. “I’ll get the heat on for you…”

He drove slowly, mindful of the slippery terrain and the many potholes. The streets weren’t quite overflowing, but it was close to a torrential downpour. Lucy yanked at her collar uncomfortably. They rode in silence. There was only the whirring of the windshield wipers and the rain beating down on the car.

Lucy didn't know what to say. About the evening, about them, about any of it. She wanted to tell him how good of a time she had had, but she didn’t want it to seem weird. They had a deal. The deal was that it was no big deal. She knew what this was, or rather what it _wasn’t_. He was warm and touchy-feely because they were playing parts. The entire thing was fake, after all. But she liked to pretend. 

They pulled up in front of her house before she knew what to say.

“Listen, Fly—”

“Lucy, I—”

“Oh, you go first—”

“No, you, it’s—”

They stopped and then laugh. It felt like drawing a breath after holding it for so long. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth.

“I had a lot of fun tonight,” he said finally. “I’m sorry it went so late.”

“I don’t mind. Really,” she added. “I had—I had a good time too, Flynn.”

“You know you can call me Garcia.” He looked at her, and even in the dimness of the dashboard light, she could tell his eyes were shining. He was smiling at her. It was infectious.

“Calling you Garcia feels a little strange.”

“You don’t _have_ to. I figured seeing as we were getting more familiar…”

Familiar. He felt it too. Did he feel it too? Maybe she wasn’t imagining it.

“I guess we have been.”

She nodded and they sat like that in silence, as rain beat down onto the car, creating a heavy metallic sound.

He cleared his throat right as she blurted, “I should—”

“Lucy, I—”

He was looking at her with the same look in his eyes. Was it hope? Was it wine? Was she imagining things?

There were other ways to find out, but in that moment she figured the best way was to lean forward. Her lips slid onto his. They were soft, sweet. She could feel the residual dampness of the rain water. After a moment, she started to pull away, but didn’t get much of a chance. His hand slid across her cheek and pulled her forward again. They kissed again, more insistently, longer. It was less sweet, but all the more enjoyable.

Suddenly, a great screech yanked them apart. A car, somewhere up the block, slammed on its breaks, creating on awful sound. Realizing that the noise was somewhere far enough away so as not to affect them, their eyes fell back on each other. He was staring at her again, eyes wide. And this time she thought she knew the emotion they held. Panic. Her heart hammered in her chest, louder than the rain on the car.

“I have to go,” she blurted. “I’ll call you tomorrow!”

She all but threw herself out of the car and ran, at top speed to her front door, where in a desperate panic she attempted to yank her keys out of her pocket and thrust them into her lock. She went inside without waving and leaned against the wall. What the hell had she been thinking? What the hell was he thinking?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to have the conclusion up by Monday. (I've been a little under the weather so don't be surprised if it takes a little longer though.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't over until it's over... right? (ft. Iris)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was delayed. (i had a meeting with my advisor about final thesis submission and have been super busy ever since!)

Lucy knew what she had to do. Of course, that didn’t make it any easier. It just made it all the more frustrating. She walked across campus to Flynn’s office with some purpose in her step and a grimace in her face. The sinking feeling of finality weighed on her as she went. Her boots echoed in the stairwell but not loud enough to distract her from her hammering heart.

She knew he had office hours, so she knew he would be around. She paused before she knocked, needing a moment to steady herself. This had started off as a means to mess with Wyatt, but she knew—had known for some time—that it was no longer about Wyatt. She knocked.

“Come in,” he called.

Her stomach flipped at the sound of his voice. She took it as a sign.

She pinned a smile to her face. It felt crooked. “Hi, do you have a few minutes?”

He was sitting at his desk, a stack of papers and a manual for R open at his elbow. He wore a black turtleneck and an irritable look—brow furrowed, lips thin—but he brightened when he saw her. “Ah, Lucy! Of course. Come in!”

“You look annoyed,” she said hesitantly. Maybe this was a bad time. She could come back later. She wanted to come back later.

He scoffed. “Oh you know. Undergrads. _Actors_. The usual pains in my ass.”

“Ah. The regular problem children.”

“You would think _they_ were the professor with a specialization in microeconomic theory and international trade. Not an..." he waved his hand as he fumbled for the right criticism, "an overly dramatic ingenue or everyman.”

“Are they like taking a course as an elective or…”

“I’m sure they’re not doing it for fun. Unless they think _torturing_ me is fun. About last night...”

“Yes, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

"Yes?" He looked at her expectantly.

The moment. “Well, I’ve been thinking and, uh..." Her throat suddenly went painfully dry. "I thought that—" She cleared her throat and shoved her hands into her pocket. They were shaking. Why were they shaking? "I’m sorry I think we should call this whole thing off.”

The second the words left her mouth, her stomach plummeted. Flynn's features froze. His mouth popped open.

After a moment and several rapid blinks, he cleared his throat. “And by this thing, you mean…”

“This fake dating thing,Garcia—I mean, Flynn.” She didn’t feel she deserved that familiarity. That intimacy. “I know this isn’t what we agreed and it must be disappointing…” they had agreed on the Christmas party. A kiss under the mistletoe. She couldn’t do that. She couldn't go that far. It already had gone too far.

“Oh. Of course. If that’s what you want...” His voice was low and a little gravelly.  

“It is.”

“Then I guess it’s for the best," he said slowly.

Lucy forced a smile back onto her face. “I’ll see you around!”

"I’ll… see you.”

She turned on her heels and walked out as quickly she could as without running. It was over. It was fine. It was the right thing to do. It was fine.

Why did she feel so terrible?

***

He followed her around. Not physically, not actually. Emotionally. Metaphorically. He was always on her mind. Each meeting, every time she had to go through a new primary source. She wondered what he might be up to, what snarky jokes he was making, what course he was teaching, what melodramatic turtleneck he was wearing.

Lucy used her knowledge of his schedule to studiously avoid him. When meeting Rufus and Jiya for lunch, she insisted they take the long way around the commerce building to get to Shiraz’s, a nearby Persian restaurant, to avoid possibly crossing paths with Flynn after one of his classes. Rufus and Jiya had exchanged looks, but said nothing.

The smallness of their department and her previous obligations caught up with her, of course, but not before the frosty air of November set in. She had agreed to be a discussant for a graduate student conference six months prior, at the end of the winter semester, and then confirmed her participation again in September. By the time she saw the reminder email about it there was no respectable or responsible way to drop out. Not without creating needless stress and drama for the organizing committee. She was locked in.

The conference took place at the university’s grad centre—an entire building dedicated to the grad students' society and council, complete with study lounges, conference rooms, and a restaurant. The upstairs conference room was the biggest room, nicknamed the ballroom. Half of it was set up with a table, podium, projector, with rows of seats. The students and professors paying close attention sat in this part of the room. The back had a pile of people, sitting, half-listening to the presentation, half-working on their own papers and theses.

It was in this lax atmosphere that Lucy was hoping to disappear into before her panel and avoid Flynn. She was planning on spending as little time as possible at the conference. While she knew it was important to support the students, she didn’t want the possibility of running into him.

The universe had other plans. She was barely past the first door frame when she walked right into him. Her breath left her body and she felt her eyes widen.

“Flynn!”

He was on his phone (of course). “Lucy. How— one sec.” He brushed past her and out the door.

She watched him go and then let out a sigh. It was fine. It had gone fine. After all, what had she been expecting?

She went to her panel.

***

She was grateful for the panel for distracting her. Even if two of the students went over their time limits and the Q and A period had more comments, and long winded ones at that, than questions, it was still something else to focus on. Something that wasn’t how Flynn had barely looked at her. Ending it, their fake relationship, had been the right thing to do. That was how he really felt. She dodged a bullet in the long run, even if in the moment it felt like she’d shot herself in the foot.

She planned a quick escape, when once again, she met Flynn in the doorway. This time, he wasn’t alone. At his hand was a little girl wearing a blue dress and floral leggings. Iris.

“Oh, Lucy. I’m sorry we missed your panel.”

“Oh! Hi! This must be Iris,” Lucy said.

“Yes, Iris, this is Lucy,” he smiled down at the girl who gave Lucy a little wave.

“What are you two up?”

“We have an unexpected PD day. And Lorena is out of town. Her mom fell down and needs a little surgery.”

“Oh!” Lucy said, cringing. They had spoken about 20 words in three weeks and 25% of those words were “oh”. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. The surgery went well and Mom’s going to take care of her. Make sure she’s okay.” Flynn smiled down at Iris, giving her hand a squeeze.

“And Iris has the day off school?”

“Yes. When I was younger they never cancelled school for a snow day or the plague or anything. Now they just hand out days off. Like random. Don’t worry though. I’ll be putting her to work. California doesn’t have any child labour laws, right, Iris?”

Iris looked at him with a slight smile. “My fee is two _billion_.”

“Too much. How about 2 shiny pennies.”

“Now it's three billion,” she announced.

“Is she going to watch the panel?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Flynn said. “I couldn’t find a babysitter so last minute.”

“I could watch her,” Lucy offered.

He blinked and seemed taken aback.

Was it weird to look after his kid? It was definitely weird. “I mean, if you’re comfortable with that,” she amended.

He nodded slowly. “Sure. If you don’t mind…”

“Not at all!” Was he actually saying yes?

He turned to his daughter. “Iris, do you mind if Lucy looks after you for two hours?”

The girl twisted her mouth and stared at her father.

“You two can walk around and get a snack, but if you stay with me you have to be quiet and do your colouring, okay?”

She didn’t seem to like that much either.

“You have to make up your mind quick though, my panel is about to start.”

“Okay,” she said with a long sigh that seemed to belong to someone much older and much more beleaguered. “But this isn’t fun,” she told him. “Marcie said _her_ parents are taking her to the movies today.” She gave her foot a little stomp for emphasis.

“I—We could go to the movies. There’s a theatre only twenty minutes away,” Lucy said.

“Okay!” Iris said, brightly.

“Isn’t that… you know, kind of artsy?” Flynn said.

“I’m sure there’s something there to watch. Besides, you'll be lucky if you can cut your panel off at two hours. These things _always_ go over.”

He nodded. “Okay, text me what movie you end up in and I’ll call you when I’m out.”

***

The theatre did turn out to be a little too artsy for Iris’s taste. While Lucy thought the Latin film festival sounded interesting, Iris couldn’t get behind a movie without cartoons. Lucy placated her with the promise of ice cream, despite the autumn coolness, and the suggestion that they go see the campus’s museum, which didn't technically belong to the university despite being on university land. It had dinosaur bones and part of a woolly mammoth tusk. Luckily, the dinosaur bones intrigued Iris.

“So you play soccer, huh?” Lucy asked her as they walked back to campus.

“Yeah. Not now ‘cause it’s fall. But in the summer.”

“And your dad coaches?”

“Yeah, he did last summer. The summer before that there was another lady. But she graduated and moved to Seattle.”

“Was she a student?”

“I guess so,” Iris said with a noncommittal shrug.

“Do you like school?” Lucy asked. Her strategy was just to feed the girl questions until they got to the museum. It was more of a fifteen-minute walk than twenty, but that was still thirty minutes of walking when all was said and done.

“It’s boring. All we do is _math_.”

“What? All day?”

“Basically,” Iris said with another sigh that was starting to sound deeply Flynn-like the more she did it.

“Well, what do you do on the weekend?”

“We watch tv and go swimming and mom goes to the market for groceries, but if I’m with dad he takes me to the library.”

“The public library?”

“Yeah,” Iris said, as if there was no other library in the world.

“What kind of books do you like to take out?”

“Good ones,” Iris said simply.

“But what are they about?”

“Oh,” Iris said, as if she was just realizing what Lucy had asked her. “I have one about kids who go to an old book store where they get books that let them time travel.”

“The Magic Tree House?”

“No, not those. The Good Times Travel Agency books.”

“Okay, which one is your favourite?”

“I like the one where they go to Ancient Egypt. They drink beer there because there wasn’t clean water. Dad wouldn’t let me drink his beer though. He said not until I become a doctor. But mom said that would take twenty years.”

Lucy laughed, faking surprise. “Really? Your dad won’t let you drink with him?” 

“Yeah. It’s not like he ever goes out like mom does. He’s just boring and stays in. My friend Amy said he might be a shut-in. Her aunt's a shut-in. She has to go to therapy. Dad doesn't do that though.”

That didn’t jibe with Lucy’s image of Flynn. She pictured him going to bars and hanging out with people. But it brought back what Anthony had said to her. _“It’s nice to see you out. And doing things.”_

By that point they were close to the campus, and Lucy asked her if she wanted anything from a coffee cart they passed. She didn’t, but she did need to use the bathroom. They took a small detour to the chemistry building and Lucy waited for her outside. She took out her phone to see if Flynn had responded to her texts updating him on their plans and progress. There was nothing, which made sense, as he was on a panel. How much time had she spent over the last few weeks checking to see if he had texted? A shameful amount, she decided. She shoved her phone into her pocket.

“Lucy, hi.”

Lucy jumped and turned. A few feet away, was Wyatt Logan. She had the urge to turn around and leave, but she couldn't leave without Iris.

“Hi, Wyatt,” she said with a polite smile.

“It’s been a while. How are you doing?”

“Fine. I’m just waiting for Iris.” She motioned to the washroom.

“Who’s that?”

“Flynn’s daughter.”

She could see the disapproval painted across his face and resisted the urge to punch it. “You know, Wyatt, it’s really _none_ of your business,” she snapped.

He threw up his hands, as if in surrender. “I didn’t say anything. Lucy, I just think—”

“He told me you went to talk to him by the way. That was completely inappropriate, Wyatt!”

“I was just looking out for you!” He kept his voice low, so they could maintain the pretense that this was a normal conversation and not a long repressed fight.

“You had no right!”

“Lucy, I know things between us got messy, but I still consider you a good friend.”

There was something about that that she wanted to like, but was actually all the more insulting. She had been in love with him and he thought of her like a friend.

She scoffed. “A friend? You hurt me."

"I didn't mean for it to play out like that."

"Let me finish!" she snapped.

He looked taken aback for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," he agreed quietly. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You hurt me," she said again. "I know that you care about me and you care about Jessica and that must have been really confusing for you, but you went about it all wrong and you hurt me. You really hurt me, Wyatt.”

“I’m—I’m really sorry. I only wanted what’s best for you. And Flynn—”

“Then you have to let me go and trust that I can decide that for myself.”

He opened and closed his mouth and then, he nodded. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The door opened behind and Iris whispered, “Lucy, I can’t turn the sink off!”

“Oh shoot!” Lucy turned and rushed into the bathroom to help.

***

On the first floor of the museum, there was lots of models of and taxidermied marine animals. Iris declared that they were creepy and marched upstairs. On the second floor, there was an immense collection of seashells of peculiar shapes, sizes and colours. Lucy didn’t know the study of shells was called conchologycitus until she read one of the innumerable plaques. The collection had been bequeathed by Harry Torvald, an avid collector, Lucy read. Around these plaques were the lists of awards that Torvald’s collection had earned. The other side of this room, was filled with rocks and minerals. Iris picked out all of her favourites and Lucy read those plaques to her. Iris liked mostly all the green ones, with the exception of the weloganite, a very rare carbonate mineral from Quebec, in Canada. Of the three main kinds of rocks, Lucy read, this one was igneous, made from cooling magma or lava. The other two kinds were sedimentary and metamorphic.

The next room had the dinosaur bones and the sabre-tooth tiger skeleton, not a mammoth tusk. As Iris ran around the remains of a triceratops head, Lucy texted Flynn the updates.

The museum was a real mishmash. Aside from the shells, many of the rocks and the dinosaur fossils and the prehistoric mammal that had been found in the La Brea Tar Pits. There were models of strange creatures of the Burgess Shale that dated back to the Cambrian explosion and there was a skeleton of a prehistoric whale called the Cetotherium. Pausing at that plaque, Lucy read that it was apparently a smaller, sleeker version of the modern grey whale and lived off the shores of California millions of years ago. An amendment to the plaque, in newer, smaller font, corrected the assertion that the Cetotheriidae had gone extinct during the Pliocene. New findings suggested that the pygmy right whale was this family’s sole surviving species.

Lucy chuckled when she read that the Cetotherium was also called a “whale beast”, despite only being four and a half meters long. Most of that length seemed to be it’s very angular skull. The teeth that were remaining _were_ surprisingly pointy.

It was impossible not to feel young or small in front of a creature that had been dead for longer than humanity’s collective existence. Hell, ancient Egypt, the subject of Iris’s favourite book, was a civilization that rose and fell in more time than her own had existed at all. She liked history for all of humanity's accomplishments, doings, and downfalls, but the natural world had its own stories. It was a small world with multiple iterations of life playing out on top of each other, on top of the same terrain.

Footfalls clattered behind her and Lucy turned to see Iris, flushed, but happy.

“Watcha looking at?” she asked.

“A whale beast.”

“He doesn’t look very big.”

Lucy laughed. “It think it’s actually a she. Do you want to go upstairs to look at the bugs?”

“Bugs? Ew!” With that Iris was off to look at the sabre-tooth.

Lucy turned back to the whale. Its plaque referenced compression damage to the skeleton’s vertebra, a sign that she had dove deep then looked up at her prey, which would have been silhouetted from the light at the surface. That was how she hunted. Lucy idly wondered if archaeologists would look at her own spine and be able to tell that she spent so much damn time at her desk typing or flipping through papers at archives.

She heard more footsteps behind her and turned, expecting Iris to come back to shame the whale for her unimpressive size. It was Flynn, tie off, the top buttons of his shirt undone.

“You’re back! Is the panel over already?”

“Yes. Our moderator was merciless with the time limit, luckily. Where’s Iris?”

“Making fun of the sabre-tooth.”

"Ah, good thing it's already dead."

They walked over to her and she greeted Flynn was a smile and the fact, “That’s a smil-o-don,” pronouncing her newly earned knowledge carefully for him, “which is just one _kind_ of sabre-tooth. There used to be different kinds. I wish there were still different kinds of them.”

“I’d hate to be one of those thing’s dentist,” Flynn said.

“There are still tigers around,” Lucy protested.

“But they don’t have big teeth,” Iris argued.

“I’d say a tiger has pretty big teeth,” Lucy laughed.

“Yeah, but are their teeth seven inches big? His teeth are seven inches big.”

“She’s got you there,” Flynn chuckled. “And it’s long, not big, sweetie. Seven inches _long_.”

“Yeah, long enough,” Iris said. She turned and ran to the next panel. It wasn’t a model or a skeleton, but a drawing of several smilodons killing a mammoth.

Left alone, Flynn said to Lucy, lightly, “This was a great idea. She’s having a lot of fun. I never would have thought to bring her here and it’s right on campus.”

“No problem. I came for a fundraiser a few years ago. It’s nice.”

Iris turned and ran past them, back to an earlier exhibit, back in time, to look at fossils from the Devonian seas. The brachiopods and tabulate corals, which looked something like honey combs and rugose corals, which were extinct and looked like horns. Behind these fossils, on the wall, was a painting, complete with notes identifying each part of a large reef in shallow waters. It was encrusted in red algae.

“It’s pretty random, having all this stuff in here together,” he mused.

“The third floor is the entomology section.”

He chuckled. “Of course it is.”

“I think a lot of it got bequeathed or collected by the university over the years. A lot of biology and paleontology classes come in.”

“It’s nice. A good resource. And a beautiful building. There's so much natural light.”

"Mm-hm."

Iris ran past them again, to the end of the room. In front of a large window, almost floor to ceiling, there was another exhibit. It showed the extinct animals of California, complete with colouring sheets of the extinct animals. It was a pretty macabre contrast, to show kids pictures and taxidermied passenger pigeons and a California Grizzly Bear and then some colouring sheets of Southern California kit foxes and Pygmy mammoths.

She sprinted back up to them, pointing at the colouring sheets. “Dad can I—”

He was already nodding.

“Know what the best part of this place is?” he asked, turning to Lucy.

“What?”

“It’s by donation and there’s no gift shop.”

Lucy snorted.

“Can we go look at that guy?” Flynn was pointing at a model of a holmesina. They meandered over, Flynn turning to check to make sure he could still see Iris at the Extinct Animals’ section. “Looks like an armadillo. It's kind of cute...” Reading the plaque, he amended, “No, never mind, just a Texan.”

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. “It looks like a distant relative of armadillos.” Then she read the plaque. “Wait, really?”

“That’s where they found him.”

“Huh.”

“Do you think our mutual nemesis rolls into a ball to avoid predators, like responsibilities, too?”

Lucy gave him a warning look. “We actually talked today. He apologized.”

“Really? Wait, we’re talking about Wyatt and not the…” he stopped to read the name off the plaque, “holmesina.”

“Very funny. Yes, we’re talking about Wyatt.”

“Well, I’m glad. There’s hope for him yet. This guy on the other hand,” Flynn mused, turning back to the model.

“Flynn, can I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t really go out and have a social life, do you?”

The question took him completely by surprise. For a moment he gaped at her before asking, “Did-did Iris say something?”

“No, not really, just that you two spent all weekend together that kind of thing.”

“Well, you do that when you have kid, you know. What makes you—”

“I guess I know you well enough at this point. We’ve spent a lot of time together. And I guess I wanted to say that I really had a great time when we were doing that.”

His brow knit together. “Then why did you ask to stop?”

“Because I was having such a great time.”

He stared at her for a moment. “That makes no sense.”

“I know, it’s just. We agreed it was going to be fake. It was to mess with Wyatt and play with people's expectations. It was supposed to be a fantasy and I,” she took a deep breath, “wanted the fantasy.”

Her heart pounded in her chest. She shouldn’t have done it then, not when his kid was twenty feet away colouring. Her palms were sweating. She should have waited. He looked frozen, staring at her and—

He smiled. He positively grinned.

“Me too. Lucy, I started to feel the same way.”

Laughter spilled out of her throat. It was an instinctual reaction of relief. “You-you do?”

“Yes, I… Lucy, I always _liked_ you. Well, I guess a little more than like.”

“Then why did you suggest we _fake_ date?” she exclaimed in disbelief. “Why didn’t you just ask me out?”

He needed a moment to get the words out, to chew it through. “I wanted to, but I had just gotten divorced and then you were with Wyatt and you seemed so upset after Wyatt. This felt like the safer option. I could see you and spend time with you and it would mostly be at work and it wouldn’t affect Iris or our life. I thought if I did it that way I wouldn’t get hurt. It was a fantasy for me too and I just thought this would be easier.”

“That is incredibly extra and beyond convoluted.”

“Yes, I realize that _now_ …”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“About you?”

“No, well, yes, about that, but also about getting hurt?”

He paused and then shook his head. “No. Now I… Lucy, being with you was a bit of a fantasy. The only part I dreaded was when it would be over and then you came to my office and—”

“I only did that because I thought it was fake for you but real for me.”

“I thought it was the other around. I thought you realized how I felt about you when we kissed and it was fake for you, so you panicked.”

“No! Not at all!”

They laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, at their own assumptions—at themselves.

“Do you want to come out for dinner with Iris and I tonight?” he asked.

“If that’s okay with you?”

“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t.”

“I would love to.”

They smiled at each other, face-splitting grins.

“One more thing,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can I break a rule?”

“Which one?”

“The kissing one.”

She tilted her head to side. “Please do.”

Glancing behind him one more time to make sure that Iris was still preoccupied with the drawings, Lucy slipped into his arms and he pulled her into a deep kiss. Then, he dipped her like they were tangoing—a Hollywood kiss. She let out a small yell and then laughed. When they resurfaced they kept laughing. Slipping her hand into his, they turned and walked back to the wide window, back to Iris.

 

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone for reading and kudos-ing and commenting!! It meant so much to me


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